by Leo Ruickbie
The next day Mephistopheles returned for Faustus’s signature. With an easy air Faustus took up his knife and pricked a vein in his left hand. In the blood that pooled in his palm words appeared, o homo fuge (‘O man, fly’), sending Mephistopheles to flight, reminding the demon, no doubt, of the words from the Bible (1 Timothy 6:11): Tu autem o homo Dei haec fuge, ‘But thou, O man of God, flee these things.’ Marlowe had his Faustus regard the problem and finding himself without a refuge to fly to – ‘If unto God, he’ll throw me down to hell’ (II.1.79-80) – believed himself without any other option.
The Faustus of the Faustbook dipped his pen, unconcerned, and signed over ‘body, soul, flesh, blood’ for the fulfilment of his every desire, according to his stated articles, for the term of twenty-four years.3 It was not a long time. The number also has symbolic meanings and should not be taken literally. It reminds us of the twenty-four hours in a day and thus creates an extreme contrast between the brevity of Faustus’s time on earth and the eternity of damnation that awaits him – twenty-four hours or even twenty-four years is but a blink of the eye in comparison.
A variation of the story is given in the eighteenth-century Black Raven that pretended to have been published in Lyon in 1469. According to this version, a much more innocent Faustus happened upon a grimoire and in a spirit of experimentation decided to give it a go. He began with a casual incredulity, reading out the invocations for fun rather than out of serious expectation. Imagine his surprise, then, when Astaroth appeared before him, demanding to know why he had been summoned. Not quite believing his luck Faustus hurriedly asked the spirit that he should be useful to him in the fulfilment of any desire he should have. Astaroth agreed on condition that Faustus sign a pact. Of course Faustus had no wish to do so, but realising that his protective circle was carelessly drawn, he was forced to concede. The agreement was quickly drawn up with the usual terms: the spirit’s service for a fixed period in return for Faustus’s soul.
The blood pact was a well-attested practice up to the early Middle Ages in Germany, Scandinavia and Ireland, where such pacts formed family-like ties between unrelated men. The Classical writers Herodotus and Pomponius Mela told stories about the Scythians using blood to conclude agreements. First year students at German universities were said at one time to write messages in blood in each other’s albums and elsewhere we find accounts of blood-drinking rites amongst Italian bandits in the 1890s that would have made good material for Bram Stoker.4 The pact sealed a two-way bond because both gave blood. In the Faustus myth it is only Faustus who gives his blood; it is even debatable whether as a spirit the Devil or any of his officers could have any blood to give.
The magical use of blood is similarly well-known. It is the core of Christianity: ‘Drink ye all of it; / For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins’ and ‘Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.’4 Through the words of his Apostles we are given to understand that Jesus’s blood had magical properties when consumed by his followers. Even at the symbolic level of the Sacrifice of the Mass it is difficult to put aside thoughts of Transylvanian counts.
In the Germanic myth of the Nibelungen blood is seen as having the power to renew strength because it was thought to contain the life-force. In central Europe in the Middle Ages it was used in love magic to bind would-be lovers, elements of which survived up to the modern period. In combination with the consecrated Host it could drive out illness. Painted on doorposts it could keep witches and evil spirits at bay. Fear of its misuse – the so-called ‘blood libel’ – was an important ingredient in the persecution of the Jews during Faustus’s lifetime.5
It was a widespread belief that blood attracted spirits. In the literature of Classical Antiquity, Odysseus most famously conjured up the shades of the dead using blood, as per the sorceress Circe’s instructions. Michael Scot (c.1175–1232), sometime astrologer to Emperor Friedrich II, described the practices of necromancers as always involving some sort of sacrifice: blood, wine that looks like blood, flesh of corpses or a slice of the magician’s own hide. A manuscript of the thirteenth century, now at Paris, stipulated that the blood of a bat must be used in the conjuration described and closer to Faustus’s own time we find examples of animal sacrifice in Codex 849. The Faustian grimoires also recommend their share of gore. The Geister Commando – purporting to date from 1501 – called for the blood of white doves and butterflies to be used in its rites. The magical value of blood has not diminished down the centuries, as we see from the Toradjas tribe of Celebes who smear blood on new buildings, to Angelina Jolie who used it during her marriage ceremonies.6
Blood could bind and repel, depending on at whom it was directed, and re-invigorate. It symbolised life itself and so could influence life. It was the essence of life, of the creature from which it was shed, and thus could magically be that creature. As the essence of life it was sought by that which did not live, attracting the dead and the unborn, the hungry ghosts and greedy demons. It was just the right ink for infernal contracts.
That such contracts with the Devil or his agents were made was so widely and authoritatively reported that it was believed as a fact. As early as the fourth century, Augustine of Hippo wrote censoriously of ‘pacts with demons’ in his De Doctrina Christiana. In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas argued that any work of sorcery implied a pact with the Devil. In the fourteenth century, Pope John XXII (1316–34) ordered the inquisitors at Toulouse and Carcassonne in the south of France to take action against maleficos – sorcerers or witches defined as worshipping demons or making pacts with them. The idea of pacts resurfaced in his bull Super illius specula of 1326. In 1398 the University of Paris declared that sorcery implied a pact, even if there was no formal agreement made, and that sorcery conducted with a pact was heresy. Johannes Nider used John XXII’s bull a century later in his handbook for confessors. In 1437 Pope Eugenius IV used similar language when writing to his army of inquisitors, making reference to written contracts. Nider wrote the same year that
They are called necromancers, who, through a pact with demons [and] through faith in ceremonies, predict future events, or manifest certain hidden things by the revelation of demons, or who harm those around them by evil sorcery.7
Kramer and Sprenger’s influential Malleus Maleficarum (1486) made frequent reference to pacts, asserting that ‘witches are bound to make this pact [with the Devil], which is exacted by that enemy either wholly or in part’, and used phraseology identical to John XXII’s bull.8 Nider went further to argue that there was no essential difference between those who were called necromancers and those who were called witches.
Faustus was a self-declared necromancer who claimed to be able to predict the future, among other things, ergo, he must have made a pact with demons. That is how his case would have been viewed by Nider and others of a similar persuasion, and even if there was no evidence of a pact, a pact was nevertheless implied by his practice of sorcery. There could be no escaping the logic of the Church. Faustus could not win.
Trithemius, who would have known the texts just cited, could not help but view Faustus as anything but the worst sort of person. Trithemius also turned his mind to the diabolical pact in the Eight Questions – written after his discussion with Emperor Maximilian I – and his answer was treated as authoritative for some time.9
However, we find Trithemius’s erstwhile student Agrippa arguing against the idea of pacts in his Occult Philosophy. He confessed that he had once confused the details of ancient magical rituals with ‘certain occult agreements of the devils’ and it was only after more serious study that he perceived them for what they were, which was ‘not the compacts of devils’.10
If even Agrippa could see certain magical instructions as agreements and compacts of devils, how much more so the ordinary man, untutored in magic? The unusual and unfamiliar suggested magic and where there was magic the Devil would not be far behind. Such learnéd interpretations a
s Agrippa offered were to be distrusted, for, as Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg wrote in 1508, magic was simply a way of communicating with the Devil who carried out the operations on the magician’s behalf: ‘So what the witches do is only a sign, not the deed itself.’11 Writing in 1529, Martin de Castagena reinforced the notion that the magician was essentially powerless, at the mercy of the Devil and bound to do his terrible will.
This discourse was a forcible expression of the belief that magic itself could have no intrinsic power. It attempted to limit the threat posed by the magician, although as a consequence increased the Devil’s empire. By concentrating all forms of magic in the Devil’s camp it could be dealt with by the established methods of the Church. Being a good Christian was the best defence. If, however, the magician had power over the universe through his mastery of magical procedures, then not even being a good Christian would be protection enough.
The Devil Taketh Him Up
The example of Jesus in the wilderness put temptation by the Devil at the heart of Christianity and not everyone was so stubborn as to refuse him. Faustus was not the first person in history reputed to have made a pact with the Devil, nor the last. Two great examples preceded him – St Basil and Theophilus – and many more thronged about him in his own time. Many of the great men in history have been accused of filling the legal department of hell with their writings. The pact was a mainstay of Christian legend, used to reveal the saintliness of some and revile the satanism of others – a two-edged weapon in the war of words fought between sanctioned ‘truth’ and outlawed knowledge.
Claiming the dubious honour of being the first in the Christian era to enter a pact with the Devil was a slave of Heradius or, according to another version, of Senator Proterius of Caesarea, whose soul was saved by the intercession of St Basil (330–379). According to the fourth-century legend, he was said to have solicited Satan’s help to win his master’s beautiful daughter in marriage. He traded his eternal service for possession of the girl and she duly fell madly in love with him, threatening to kill herself if her father forbade the match.
The man’s new bride soon became suspicious when he refused to make the sign of the cross or enter a church. He assured her that nothing was wrong, but unsatisfied with this she sought out the advice of Bishop Basil. Basil subjected him to an interrogation during which he confessed that his soul belonged to the Prince of Darkness. Basil threw the man in a cell and locked the door while he went to pray for him. The man was apparently now assailed by devils. When these ‘demonic attacks’ subsided, Basil hauled him out and dragged him off to church. Here he prayed over the young man, demanding the return of the contract, and lo and behold, from a balcony a scrap of paper ‘fluttered down through the air and fell into his hands, in the sight of all’. The saint tore the paper in two, expelled the ‘howling demons’ and, now freed from the pact, the servant was ‘worthy once again to receive the sacraments’.12 Luther’s friend Georg Major published the life of St Basil, including this story, with an introduction by Luther, in Wittenberg in 1544, attesting to the value attached to the tale in Faustus’s age.
The most popular and widely known tale of pact-making was that of Theophilus the Penitent. Composed sometime between 600 and 850 CE, the story relates to events dated as 537 CE. Translated into Latin at least as early as the ninth century, it was circulated throughout Europe, although the use of blood to write out the pact only entered the tale as late as the thirteenth century. Before the legend of Faustus, this was the Faustus legend.
Theophilus was a high-ranking clergyman of Adana in Cilicia (now Turkey) before the Persian invasion of the Byzantine Empire. When the old bishop died, his steward Theophilus was seen as the natural successor. Theophilus, however, did not want the job. He claimed that he was unworthy of such high office, going on about sins that no one had noticed. The mitre and crosier could not be forced upon him and another man was promoted in his place.
Theophilus’s former supporters turned against him and had him removed from his office of steward. He now realised that he had made a big mistake and turned to ‘a certain wicked Jew, a practitioner of all sorts of diabolical arts’ described as having ‘plunged many into the deep pit of perdition by his unchristian counsels’ – clearly this man was a successful practitioner of magic with a healthy client list. The magician invoked the Prince of Hell who appeared with a retinue of white-robed demons, carrying candlesticks and uttering loud cries. The Devil agreed to aid Theophilus, who was only too keen to conclude the deal, boldly denying Christ and the Virgin. He wrote out his renunciation ‘with his blood’, folded it and sealed it with wax, putting the mark of his ring upon it.
Theophilus’s fortunes were immediately reversed. He got his old job back with double salary and extended powers. Once the novelty wore off, Theophilus grew increasingly uneasy and stayed up late, praying and not eating, thinking particularly of ‘the gnashing teeth and the worm that dieth not’ that awaited him in hell.
Utterly broken by worrying about eternal damnation, Theophilus sought out the nearest church and prostrated himself on its cold floor before a representation of Mary for the next forty days and nights. Starving, sleep-deprived and in an over-excited mental state, Theophilus now began to hear a voice, purportedly that of Mary, reprimanding him for abandoning Christianity. In his defence he made a long-winded argument that can be summarised as follows: Theophilus now believed in everything Christian again; it is Jesus’s job to forgive him; and he, Theophilus, was not really responsible for his own actions anyway. Convinced, Mary went off to talk to her son, whilst Theophilus ‘prayed and beat his face violently against the floor … remaining without food and flooding the place with tears’ for another three days. He heard the voice again telling him that he was acquitted, but Theophilus demanded that the pact be returned to him. Theophilus had to wait another three days before Mary reappeared ‘in a vision as it seemed’ and handed over the pact. After confessing the whole sordid story to the bishop – who used the occasion as a great marketing exercise – Theophilus died, no doubt on account of his prolonged fasting and violent hysteria.13
The implicit message seems to be: make a deal with the Devil, get what you want and back out of it later to avoid the fiery pit – although it is doubtful that that was the intention. Because he is the ultimate evil, the reversal of everything Christian, a pact with the Devil is the ultimate sin and the intentional message is that, however great you think your sins are, the Church will embrace you and you will be saved. The story of Theophilus is a clear-cut Christian morality tale with, in the version cited, a heavy and distasteful dose of anti-Semitism (and anti-Magianism) as well as an agenda to promote the cult of Mary. Jews – whom Luther would later call ‘the Devil’s children’ – and magic are the central threats, conduits to the enemy of Christianity, and are singled out for condemnation.14 The Jewish magician is later summarily executed and Theophilus regards the matter with an easy conscience. The original author apparently did not notice how self-centred and utterly craven Theophilus appears in the story. Rather than edifying, it is disturbing. The Faustus of legend at least had the strength of character to keep his word, but in doing so demonstrated a theological shift: the sinful Protestant would not be redeemed.
With the success of the Theophilus story, diabolical pacts were a popular subject and great propaganda. Attached to the life of a saint they could be used to amplify his holiness. Attached to the name of an enemy they could be used to discredit him. Two twelfth-century tales exemplify the former type. St Wulfric (d.1154), the hermit of Haselbury in Dorset, was reputed to have interceded in a case of diabolical pact-making. The Archdeacon of Oxford, Walter Map (c.1160–1210), told the story of a young French nobleman called Eudo who had reduced himself to poverty through his extravagance and sought a way out by making terms with the Devil. He was absolved by the Bishop of Beauvais on condition that he burn himself to death as penance.
It was not just the poverty-stricken who turned to the Devil. Similar st
ories attached themselves to anyone who stepped out of line with convention. Socrates, Apollonius of Tyana, Apuleius, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lull, Julius Caesar Scaliger, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Nostradamus, Michael Servetus, Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei were all thought to have sold their souls to the Devil. Nor were popes above such accusations. Pope Boniface VIII was posthumously tried for a catalogue of crimes that included making a pact, and Alexander VI was also held to be in league with the powers of darkness. Trithemius did not escape such calumny and the religious reformers Luther, Melanchthon and Calvin were similarly tarred with the same brush.
Notwithstanding Luther’s own supposed pact with the Devil, he himself claimed that Trithemius’s patron (and Luther’s political opponent) Prince-Elector Joachim I von Brandenburg had signed a pact with the Devil, as had his religious rival Johannes Eck. He also told the story of an unnamed soothsayer and practitioner of black magic discovered in Erfurt in 1537 to have contracted with Satan and burnt to death.
Only a few months later Luther was himself called in to deal with a case of pact-making at the University of Wittenberg. Struggling in the direst poverty, the student Valerius Glöckner had been approached by Satan when his need was at its greatest. In return for some hard currency the student signed over his immortal soul in the time honoured tradition. Luther laid into him with a torrent of religiously-flavoured verbal abuse before dragging the hapless student off to church where he prayed for him, laid his hands upon him and squeezed a repentant confession out of him.
